fe ature ◗ Gord Olson
Grow-in Up The ups and downs of growing in the golf course at Tsawwassen ◗ The Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club began life in 1967 and operated for 40 years as one of the busiest tournament golf courses in the lower mainland, British Colombia. It was a 4500 yard, par-65 that was set amidst a beautiful, park-like setting with mature weeping willow, sequoia and fir trees and a number of lakes filled with carp and koi. The club had its heyday in the eighties and nineties while golf was going through a growth spurt and the TGCC was the go-to course for company golf outings due to its shorter length and attractive setting. The numbers began to drop off in the new millennium with the economic downturn that had some companies deciding they could not afford the company golf tournament. The course also had an old, troublesome Vari-time irrigation system that couldn’t keep things green in the summer drought months. The old system was single row with a hodgepodge of heads; 690s and 650s for fairways and 730s and 634s on tees and around greens. Irrigation uniformity was a hopeless dream. In 2007, the club was purchased by local businessman Ron Toigo. He had a vision
of a new community surrounded by a reimagined and much improved golf course. Although lengthened to 5400 yards from the black tees and brought up to a par-70, the course (designed by Ted Locke) is still very much friendly to shorter hitters, but brings a strategic dimension which the old course lacked. While the old course was short and straightforward, the improved version gives you plenty to consider at most tees. Although I had been superintendent at the TGCC for five years, taking control of the grow-in of a new course was completely new to me and forced me to seek advice from those who had experience with grow-ins. My primary go-to-guy for wisdom was John Przybyszewski who was up from California and was overseeing the construction of the new course. Retired superintendent Bruce Thrasher was also a wealth of information and dropped in periodically to chat and share ideas.
Greens 007 Creeping Bentgrass at 1.5lbs/1000. Greens were seeded from September 15 to October 15, each achieving a different level of density before the November cold snap hit. One green was hit by desiccation
on high points because of below freezing temperatures and high winds while another was struck with a bad case of fusarium that looked not unlike measles. Although difficult to look at over the winter, it only required some minor overseeding in the spring. The 007 greens are easy to care for with the proviso that you are able to provide them with enough sunlight and can keep the thatch from becoming a problem. For the grow-in fertilizer program, we followed a strict regime of Andersons Nutri DG line of products every two weeks. The first few cuts were made at ½” (no buckets) in the afternoon when they were dry, but we quickly brought them down to encourage density. Although initially not a problem, take-all patch began to appear in the second year of establishment and showed up where there was any stress to the greens. If caught early, the symptoms are easily masked with fertilizer, but if that critical point is missed, the grass is unable to recover and needs to be plugged. Our greens’ pH is high (7.3) and this is also a contributing factor for take-all. Therefore, we have been applying ammonium sulphate to lower the pH.
Scenic Tsawwassen G&CC began a grow-in during September 2007, headed up by CGSA member and superintendent Gord Olson 24 greenMaster | www.golfsupers.com